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Newcastle's managing director takes a swipe at QPR's gamble to stay in the Premier League

By Luke Edwards11:25AM GMT 07 Feb 20134

Llambias
was privately furious last month when, after lengthy negotiations and a
concerted charm offensive, QPR lured their long term transfer target,
Loic Remy, to west London on the day he had been due to have his medical
on Tyneside.The Newcastle hierarchy have been told Remy was offered
more than double the wages he would have earned at St James’ Park to
force a late change of heart and while he praised QPR owner Tony
Fernandes’ “passion” and “flair”, he insisted he would not be
“irresponsible” in overstretching Newcastle’s budget just to bring
players to the north-east.“We put a lot of work into that deal,”
said Llambias. “It is like everything else, we do not really want to
break our policies. If you do not want to come here and play, then that
is your choice. We put our work in, we lost it and we moved on.”

Llambias
was careful not to directly criticise QPR owner Tony Fernandes and
praised his “passion” and “flair”, but also made it clear he would not
have done the same thing.Newcastle spent more than £17m last month
on five players from France, but Llambias insisted they had not gambled
like QPR as their chief scout Graham Carr had been looking at all of
them for years.

As well as reportedly paying Remy more than
£80,000-a-week, a figure refuted by Fernandes in an exclusive interview
with the Sunday Telegraph last weekend, QPR spent £12m on centre-back
Chris Samba and will pay him around £100,000-a-week.With an average
attendance of less than 18,000 this season, the club’s board are paying
for the signings out of their own pockets and the wage bill will be
crippling if they fail to stay in the top flight.“Tony is a good guy
and a good owner and has passion for his club,” added Llambias in an
interview with the Newcastle Evening Chronicle.“If [owner] Mike
Ashley and I were in that position we may sit back and say: ‘Do we need
two players to push us away from relegation?’ We might have taken the
gamble too, but not irresponsibly“Tony is not being irresponsible he
is giving himself and his club a chance. If he did not do anything then
he would be criticised too.”“I would not criticise what QPR have done. I would say they have good people behind it and they are giving themselves a chance.”Llambias also argued Aston Villa have made a different sort of gamble by not spending much last month to strengthen the squad.He
explained: “The same thing could be said at Villa, it is different for
them, they are taking a gamble on the opposite side. They are saying ‘We
have a decent squad, can they keep us up?’ That is a gamble too.”

“Only
a week ago, we were three points away from those guys, but we brought a
couple of deals forward for Moussa Sissoko and Yoan Gouffran that we
were going to do at the end of the season.“Are Mike and I taking a gamble by bringing everything forward? No, it is what we felt we needed to do.”

An
ongoing matter of continued "regret" to at least this blogger: That
Queen's Park Rangers FC continue to provide a forum on its Official
Match Day broadcast show to "QBlockPete" - Pete Davies.

Ultimately,
obviously the owners and senior management of Queen's Park Rangers
Football determine who they want to employ or utilize.
But equally, QPR supporters - quite a few of whom have been supporting
QPR a lot longer than any of the current QPR owners, employees, or
"Associates" - retain the freedom to express their views (whether
supportive or critical) and concerns on matters pertaining to QPR.